"morning joe" starts right now. >> i could be more presidential than anybody. >> it's shocking comments from president trump in the oval office. >> i know words. i have the best words. >> he attacked immigrants from africa and haiti using vulgar language as to describe their countries. >> the haitian people deserve better. >> why do we want these people from all these -- countries here? >> i know words, i have the best words, but there is no better word than stupid. >> welcome to "morning joe." here we go again. this, of course, is the same president who was accused several weeks ago of saying that we didn't want people from haiti to come to the united states because they all had aids, also paid derogatory comments about people coming, i believe it was from nigeria, once they left their huts, they would never want to go back. from what i saw yesterday

ignores the evidence that immigrants that come to america from nigeria actually have a higher education level than americans. so there you go, willie, more ignorance spewing from a president who i thought was going to spend this week trying to prove that he's fit for office and he hasn't lost a step mentally, but these bizarre rantings and ravings sound i'll say it sounds like grandpa sitting in front of the tv set when he's getting old and losing it and the sort of thing, you can't say that, grandpa, be quiet. except this guy is president of the united states and the damage it does, especially when paul ryan, mitch mcconnell and other republicans remain silent in the face of such hatred and bigotry. >> only a small hand. joe, of republicans coming out last night and condemn whack the president is alleged to have said according to washington post. we will get into the specifics of what he said.

interesting distinction, you talk about the aids comment and the huts comment. those were denied. this time not denying he said it perhaps because there were bipartisan members of congress sitting in the room who can confirm and corroborate what happened. with us we have national affairs analyst for nbc news john heilemann, donny deutsche is with us, chair of the african-american studies at princeton university eddie jr. and heidi pryzbilla we are thrilled to announce in this moment, if two weeks, she will be joining nbc news as a national political reporter. >> that is great news, congratulations. >> thank you, i'm thrilled. we have a powerhouse team. i am thrilled to be aircraft contribute to it. >> what do we have, casey d.c., heidi. >> do we show an old football game is it too soon? >> the heidi game.

>> i do a thunderbolt. i have to come up with something else. >> great to have you aboard. >> thank you. so let's get that the context of the president's reported comment as far as we know it. a bipartisan group of senators led by south carolina republican lindsey graham and dick durbin, reports said it would provide a decades long citizenship for those in the daca program, authorize $2.8 billion for border security and $1. million for the border wall and complete a citizenship program and cut the visa lottery program 50%. >> willie, that's expansive stuff there. >> it is. >> this is what i think we were talking about democrats and republicans, liberals, conservatives, people from urban areas, coming towing and doing the people's work. what in the world could get in the way of that?

>> well, here it comes, senators graham and durbin took the proposal to the white house where the washington post reports, they were surprised to find immigration hard-liners, such as congressman bob goodlat and tom cotton, they told the "post" stephen miller was concerned there could be a bill proposed too liberal. so he made sure conservative law makers were in the room. when they discussed haiti and african countries, several "post" sources claim president trump said this, quote, why are we having all these people from s-hole countries come here he used the word. trump then suggested that the united states should instead bring more people from countries such as norway, woes prime minister he met on wednesday. he confirmed the language to nbc news, two sources tell nbc news president trump also said, quote, why do we need more haitians? take them out. someone else in the room responded because if you do, it

will be obvious why. so, joe the white house did not deny as i said the president's reported comments when it issued a statement from principle deputy principal raj shaw. so not denying that, not even addressing the comments. i'm not sure what it meant to say, there are members of congress working and fighting for foreign governments. put that aside, your first reaction to the president's alleged comments? >> well, of course, there are so many reactions. first of all, this was a president. first of all, it's so deeply offensive. i can't imagine any other president ever making such derogatory comments, first of all because they're morally,

immoral. they're insensitive. they undercut allies, important allies and so it's beyond the pail. but politically, if you are working inside the white house and your goal is to try to prove that this is a rational, sane president, this is not a president who has lost his step mentally, this is not a president in the early stages of dementia that can't control some of the things that he blurts out of his mouth, this comes at a particularly bad time, certainly following all the revelations of the wolff book. then john heilemann, finally, as these sort of statements are being paid, you can literally see people in suburbs streaming to the polls like they did in northern virginia, like women did in northern virginia, like highly educated people did in alabama, like millennials are doing.

millennials who have been bolting away from the republican party because of this president are doing it specifically for this reason and so now, you know, you've got, you know, a year-and-a-half, three out of four millennials voting for democrats in the election and finally, john, and of course this is perhaps the most shocking thing to me, because we have learned over the past year that donald trump will use any inflammatory racist language for political gain. of course it keeps him at 33%. the biggest shock is, if you are paul ryan, if you are mitch mcconnell, both men who have admiral background when it comes to race, if you are paul ryan, mitch mcconnell or you are ted cruz or you are anybody who hopes one day to lead this

country, mike pence, how do you not come out and immediately condemn this? not three days later after you talked through it. but immediately condemn this language? how do you not do that? let's focus on paul ryan and mitch mcconnell, how do they do that? >> i will say, joe, to your initial comment about this, this is the kind of thing your grandfather says when he's old and losing it in front of the television. that's true if your grandfather is a racist, it's not eb's grandfather that talks like that to the television. only those who don't like brown skinned people. >> i certainly did not mean that to mean everybody. hold on. >> i know you didn't. >> my grandfather was just fine. let me just say, eb knows that granddad and grandmom and people with early onset of demensia i know this, say things that they

would have never said five or six years ago, just ask members of my family and my mom about how they'll say stinging things about you or other people. i'm just saying, yeah. >> i know. i wasn't trying to get -- >> now you made me put in 18 caveats, go ahead, john heilemann. >> i just wanted to put a fine point on it. that was not directed at you in anyway. to be clear, we got a lot of evidence now, it's not like news that the president is a racist, but this is again a pretty strike demonstration of that being true. so you raised the question of mitch mcconnell and paul ryan. you will recall, joe, vividly, that 18 months ago when president trump, then candidate trump engaged in one of his first blatant acts of racism when he attacked judge curiel being a mexican judge when the judge was from indiana, paul ryan came out in an act of considerable and notable courage at the time and said this is a textbook definition of racism

and said he wouldn't tolerate it. it's now 18 months later, pretty much from that moment when brian did that thing, he's not taken a stand like that ever since and there have been again for repeated provocations of a racial kind by president trump and for reasons that we have talked about ad nauseum on this show, republican leaders have basically decided that, a, it's in their somehow and weird ideological or policy interests to look the other way about all the deprivations of the president. >> john, how do you stay -- i understand staying silent on policy matters. i understand staying silent on just about anything if you have a president if your own party. i do not understand how anybody who is a leader of the republican party if 2017 remains silent like paul ryan and mitch mcconnell and everybody else up and down the line when you are

talking about racism. >> just to be clear, i wasn't saying they are silent on policy, they think having a republican president is in their ideological best interest in the long run. they continue to think trump is a vehicle for advancing their policy agenda, even as he says these horrible things. i obviously agree with you. the only answer to the question at this point seems to me is they are morally bankrupt and politically myoptic. to your point that trump is doing extraordinary long-term damage to the brand of the republican party to the image of the republican party with all right-minded tolerant people, certainly millennials who look at the republican party and say, boy, these guys are willing to tolerate a race woift says racist things on a regular basis from the oval office. i think the republican party is not for me anymore. i guess paul ryan and mitch mcconnell don't see that.

>> why are we having all these people from s-hole countries come here? one of the people that defended the president said, you look at a place like haiti, some african nations, they have big problems, inartfully. his point is taken t. problem with that defense is he wasn't just talking about the countries. he was talking about the people. the people that come from those countries. and the people we interact with every day, a cab driver from haiti or gun hana, they watch ss like this every day, they want to know everything they can about the country. they want to talk about the country. this is a massive insult to a large group of fought just immigrants but americans, people that come here looking for a better life. >> or an immigrant fire fighter who kept running into that building that lost his life like bill kristol tweeted that. two things are going on here, one after the 55-minute theater,

where trump seemed to suggest he could separate this process, we'll go with daca, that folks thought he was soft, he was going soft, going towards the democrats' side, democratic side. here he is throwing a bone to his base this rabbit base. he suddenly comes out in some sophisticate way as hard on immigration in some ways scapegoating these nations. that's the first thing t. second thing is this, the immigration debate has always carried with it an undertone of racism. the immigration debate, no matter attributing this to everyone who holds the position, but there is a sense which immigration is driven by a deep anxiety of the browning of america. how will we stem the tide, that this is no longer a white nation. we need to understand, ever since the first naturalization act of 1790 which only allowed citizenship to free white people. it wasn't until 1952 that racial discrimination was not allowed for naturalization then we saw

racism all underneath the immigration act of 1965. there's always been this undertone this over determination of immigration and naturalization debate in the country of what kind of nation are we? so what trump did yesterday is to make explicit the racist undertone of this debate. so some of u.s. believe some of these folks, maybe senator tom cotton are engage income this debate in bad faith. what's driving it is this deep anxiety about the browning of america. so trump actually made explicit something that has been a part of this debate since the beginning. >> well, except for the fact, donny deutsche, that in the 1950s, perhaps, this would be an argument that might sway the majority of americans to go out, whether they say it at the polls or not, and vote for those candidates that supported those sort of policies that favored

wheats over all others. we have evidence now in the state of alabama. we have evidence now in virginia. we have state evidence in local races across america, in delaware county, which has never put a democrat on the county board, now having democrats this past year sweeping into office there. this is such a losing proposition. it's not even cynical because being cynical suggests you are doing something that is bad for the country but helps you politically. this just hurts. i promise for people that are watching out there, you think there are that many racists out there, you are wrong. this, women are rising up, minorities are rising up, black americans rose up in alabama, young americans are rise up. this is not wishful thinking. this is reality.

this is the death nail for the republican party of donald trump, paul ryan and mitch mcconnell. just give us anical, what if chevrolet decided they were going to offend two-thirds of the company. how long would chevy be selling trucks? >> chevy would be out of business. something you said hit me 30 seconds yesterday. i saw what he said, i said, jesus christ, i got 45% of people in this country going at home, yeah, he's saying the right thing. then i quickly went through virginia, alabama and thank god not. i think it's a word we have to use with donald trump in addition to the crazy talk, if you take charlottesville and his blessing and love of or kinesiologiship with understanding there are nice nazis out there. if we take his implied support of a pedophile and now if we take this additional very clear racist thing, he is an evil man.

we don't talk about that a lot. we talk about he's insane, crazy, that's evil. this is just an evil, evil man. to me the kill shot in that quote was norway, you know, after that, it was -- if in anyway you could twist that racist statement but then let's let the white guys in. when i say white, let's let the aryans in. you know what i mean. you couldn't get any whiter. let's let more british in the norwegians in. >> upper caucasians. >> we are talking our property is not only stupid, imbalanced, he is evil. >> so this literally if you put haiti next to norway, it's a black and white issue the way the president laid it out yesterday. you go down the list, heidi to president obama's birth second quarter, judge curiel, charlottesville, we can talk about mexicans being rapists, immigrants the list goes on and on, now you go back to his

pre-politics career as well. it seemed to me listening to talking to people around the white house and some of his support e supporters they were getting applause from the people they wanted applause from. >> i don't know, some of the republicans on the hill i talked to immediately -- >> the white house, itself, this is the president being president, trump being trump, he's a plain speaker. >> that's how they are spinning it. is that he is just sticking up for the same kind of system that many other countries like canada have, which is a merit-based system. but here's where you run into trouble. he injected race, because few want to make an argue, eddie and i discussed this before about merit-based systems, let's throw down some facts here. the facts are african nations, people coming from these african fakes are more educated than our own native people. 43% of them coming from african nations have bachelor degrees or higher compared to 33% of

americans. so if you want to make an argument based on merit. you are not left with a great explanation for why the president would call these countries s-holes. >> joe, if he completely misses the point of immigration, the people from haiti and ghana are the people fleeing those countries because they believe america will give them a better life they are working to contribute and work hard for that life. he showed a complete misunderstanding of our immigration system and why you want those people coming to america. >> right. there is a combination. obviously, the united states has to we have to look for the refugees fleeing their countries, fleeing political oppression, fleeing religious oppression. that's how our country was founded. but there is no problem. at least i don't think there is any problem having a merit-based system for immigration and there

is no problem making sure that the people that are coming in are going to be more likely to create jobs for more americans and grow this economy. >> that is fine. but i think donny pointed it out, when you start talking about we don't want people from norway, or we do want people from norway. we don't want people from haiti. >> that makes it abundantly clear that this is all about race. so, yeah, i agree with heidi, it can be merit-based. but if it's merit-based, again you are going to be getting a lot of people from the continent of africa. you are going to be getting a lot of people that may not be white but also it is important, as you said, willie that we make sure that there is a balance in our system and that while we protect our borders, we make sure we are not overrun by illegal immigrants, at the same time we have to keep america open like you said for people

who are fleeing religious and political persecution. >> that lays at the heart of who america is, who we are. >> real quick. >> real quickly, to joe's point, though, about this whole thing. in some sense this is one of the most consistent things, not just consistent as racial an mus, it exhibits his politics, which is for a year now, he has consistently over and over again taken a look at the american electorate and said i'm fine with 35%. like my base is all i care about. at every given chance he has given an opportunity to do something to expand his coalition, he turns away from that, on every issue. he constantly caters to the 35% or maybe in this case it's 25%. >> why do you think he does that? john, because he does it, you can always count on it. if he does something that shows a little bit of growth. if he does something that shows

a little maturity f. he shows a little bit of bipartisan leadership, you start thinking, if he goes in this direction, he can be in the mid-40s in every poll. and then the next day, he'll make a racist remark or do something that undercuts it all. why does he do that? >> as with so many things with trump, you have to venture out of the political analysis. you have to get to psychological analysis, i don't mean a weird psychological analysis. he seems to enjoy more the visceral intense reaction that his relatively small base gives him in approval when he does things like this more than he enjoys the kind of more diffuse approval that he gets when he reaches out. he likes to hear the intense roar of a small group of people. i don't understand why that is. but that is the thing, he defaults to that over and over again. >> i think we are over analyzing this. this is a private meeting. he wasn't expecting this to necessarily get out.

when did we just say, this is how the president feels. >> democrats in the room. >> he is coming authentically from him. it wasn't a big strategy that he thought before those words came out of his mouth. >> he's most comfortable, heidi, being the general of the culture wars, of the latest instance of the culture wars. donald trump's presidency is the last line drawnt this sand. so this is he represents to me, right, a version of america that is dying. so there are these moments every single time when he tries, when he has an opportunity to step into the america that we actually are, he draws, he steps behind the line again and then engages in what he is most comfortable in. that's the culture war. ahead on the show, be i the way, today marks eight years since the devastating earth quake in hate di, hundreds of thousands were killed, more than a million were left homeless, more need help eight years ago in haiti.

president trump boasts with a good relationship with north korea's leader, also accusing an fbiing a of treason. a "wall street journal" report sat down with the president for prive minutes in the oval office. we're "morning joe." we'll be right back.

welcome back to "morning joe." president trump is speaking out about north korean leader kim jong-un. in an interview conducted yesterday morning, president trump says, quote, i probably have a very good relationship with kim jong-un of north korea. i think you people are surprised t. reporter followed up. . >> interestingly, russian president putin said kim jong-un is a ma cure politician who obviously won the round against the west. let's bring in capitol hill, a reporter who conducted the

interview with president trump, peter nicholas, also, supreme allied commander, the dean of fletcher school of law and tuft's university. retired army native james stavridis. gentleman, good morning. peter, let me start with you. first of all the comment on kim jong-un. did you read that as the president had spoken directly to kim jong-un or something he put out there and put up a smokescreen afterwards to create confusion by the comment? >> we were quite surprised by it. the united states does not have any relations with north korea. the president is saying not only does he have a relationship, but it's a good relationship. so it begs the question, how did that come about? is anybody conversing? the outside question, we followed up with him, didn't deny it, didn't confirm it. but there was, we did get a sense there is some sort of back channel kind of communication or

dialogue of some kind that the white house is having at the highest levels with north korea's leader. >> admiral stavridis, obviously, there was a back and forth with rex tillerson, through statements, rex tillerson talking about keeping diplomatic channels opened. the president denigrating his own secretary of state saying time and time again, don't waste your time, rex, this is going nowhere. now we have the president saying he has a great relationship with kim jong-un, a pan he insulted for the past year-and-a-half or year. can you -- can you enlighten us on what's going on? have you heard of any diplomatic back-and-forths between the president and kim jong-un? >> absolutely not. and i have a lot of conversations with people in washington. you know the least charitable version of this would be that the president has a new

imaginary friend that he visits at night sometimes. i just find it so striking that he would throw that out there and then sort of dance away from it. but, of course, he has done that repeatedly on issues. having said all that, joe, life is always compared to what and compared to him hurling further insults and throwing fuel on an already smoldering fire, i guess this is better. but it's all a part of the mixed signals that hurt us not only in north korea but many other haven't news around the world, frankly. >> joe, unfortunately, you have seen this, there are two almosts to this, obviously, he's kind of as i think the admiral said, maybe he's got a new friend, but what he also said is, i can say 30 or 40 horrible things about somebody and then i'm trends with them the next day. so that is another interesting side of it. not that his words are completely fabricated. he admit, it doesn't matter what

i say at any given moment, i can completely switch on somebody. >> peter, that's one of the reasons why when people talk about the end of his relationship with steve bannon. i said you just don't know donald trump, do you? maybe perhaps he will never be in touch with steve bannon. if he has the dismr. into cut bannon off and never talk to him again, bannon will be the first person in his 71 years to have ever gotten that treatment. >> that's a good point. we talked about that relationship. he says he feels betrayed by bannon. he denies that bannon had any positive role in his campaign. he said other people helped me get elected. he pointed to hope hicks, his communication director in the room, said she did a lot more than steve bannon. he offered to take us around the white house and introduce us to people that contributed more than steve bannon. >> i'm curious. i read the interview, i didn't see jared kushner's name. did he give any credit to jared kushner from everything that i

saw during the campaign did more to put together the operation that ended up winning the campaign than anybody else, but i did not hear jared's name mentioned. >> reporter: no, jared's name did not come up. sarah huck by sanders was there, gary cohn was in the room. he didn't mention jared. but what i was saying, we asked him at the end, he was bitter about steve bannon, talking about how bad he betrayed him him we said, is this a permanent fray, can we expect you won't have any more dealings? he said, i don't know permanent. we got a sense it's transaction am and tactical and people in the doghouse one day might find themselves rehabilitated in the mind of the president the next. >> i also noted, peter, as you pursued that line of question on steve bannon, the president went in another direction and told you about his academic prowess.

we can talk u talk about that another time. we will take a quick break. with we are stale talking to the president of the united states accusing an fbi agent of treason. we'll explain when we come back.

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you know, willie, the president this past week talked about wanting to gut first amendment protections by making it easier for people in the public sphere no sue otherer for defamation. it's not a good idea on his part because of all the people that could then turn around and sue donald trump for all the spurious things that he's said about them. we can name some people on our set or name dozensf other people who would have actually very good defamation lawsuits against the president. but i am reminded once again what a short sided move this would be by the president of the occupation, especially when he is accusing a man of treason, defaming a man's character and probably getting in the way of his livelihood for sending a tech or two, when it's clearly not treason under any definition

of the word, in fact, if i were that gentleman, i'd probably time a lawsuit today. >> joe, what itself the penalty for treason? it's death. he thinks he should be killed. he thinks he should die. >> all right. let's get into the story. in the same wall street interview the president accused the fbi agent removed from the special counsel investigation, peter strzok after it was revealed bob mueller took him off the case sending tech messages critical of trump in the campaign. in an august 2016 text. he wrote --

people familiar with strzok's account say it was conveyed to believe the fbi needed to investigate collusion with russia, not about harming trump if he were elected. strzok's lawyer responded saying it is reckless and quote it should surprise no one the president has both the facts and the law wrong. let's go back to peter nicholas of the "wall street journal," one of the reporters who conducted the interview with president trump. how did this one hit you? was it another line you felt the president was throwing out there without considering the implications? >> it's clear he is angry. he is angry about the russian investigation. he wants it to end. he was critical, derogatory of peter strzok, correspondence with his lover. all this left the impression he feels this investigation is unfair. he has been unfairly maligned.

but i will say he wants it to end quickly, he wants republicans to bring him to a conclusion, he didn't get a sense necessarily he wants to shut it down unilaterally or fire bob mueller. we didn't come away with that impression. >> let me ask you, what is the impact of the community as this continues day in, day out. you have the president of the united states accusing the fbi of committing treason, a few days ago, you had the president of the occupation accusing the fbi of using its power and tort to rig the 2016 election. you have the president of the united states constantly deriding the central intelligence agency and the brave men and women who serve this country so proudly, there you have him. in fact, denigrating the entire intelligence community, day in, day out, week in, week out. what is the impact of that if not on those agencies, because they're such professionals,

they'll keep their head down, keep serving americans, but even across the globe, with our allies, with people that might have to be persuaded, to cooperate in joint operations, to find terrorists that want to do harm to america and kill people in and out of our country. >> yeah, let's start with the service piece of this. people say to me a lot. hey, thank you, for your service. i appreciate that. there are a lot of ways to serve this country, joe, including the fbi, the cia, the police, the firemen, the peace core. there are lots of ways to serve. these are serving professionals, they don't deserve this. secondly, overseas, this is just so detrimental. it undermines confidence in these institutions. when the fbi shows up in africa, to investigate killing of americans, or the cia are trying to ramp up a joint operation in a country in central america, this undermines their confidence

in our nation. it kind of ties back to the president's loose comment in the white house the other day. >> that creates real problems for our military, our intelligence services, both within the service where commanders have to kind of try and explain, well, what is the commander-in-chief talking about here and secondly to your point, joe, with our allies overseas, all of this undermines our ability to do the diplomacy and security we need to keep the country safe. >> peter, heidi here, another highlight from your interview was a little more detail here about funding for the wall and i'm wondering if you can explain this. with the president's rationale. we started out with mexico paying for the wall. that didn't work out, obviously. so now the president is saying that somehow if he cuts a better deal on nafta, that will pay for the wall. can you explain how that would work? >> right. so we were asking about the wall. we made the very same point you made, heidi, which you had said,

mr. president, you were gentleman to have mexico pay for this through the campaign. he said he was not giving up on the idea. the mechanism won't be so direct as mexico cutting a check to the united states, rather, the u.s., the trump administration is now in the midst of these complicated renegotiations of nafta and through the nafta process, there would be some kind of allowance made that would cover the cost of the wall. that was the explanation given to us. there wasn't pa lot of detail on that. but it was the first we heard he was going to use nafta as the vehicle to do it. he se critical of nafta. he doesn't think it's worked. he said we would be better off wiping it out entirely and starting oempd and he is perfectly prepared to pull out but right now he is renegotiating it. the sense we got through him, through that renegotiation, there would be money set aside that would cover the wall.

>> all right. peter nicholas, wall street journal, thank you very much. absolutely fascinating interview. we greatly appreciate you being her to share all of the interesting contents with us. also, admiral stavridis, let us just say, thank you for your service, for all you have done for this country throughout your life. what you continue to do. we greatly appreciate it. let me also, i just want to say, as far as service goes, just for our viewers, benjamin had a great idea before the christmas break as the president was attacking the fbi day in and day out. he said that he thought a good thing to do would be to actually contribute to fbi agents association, which takes care of family members of fbi agents who have been slain or struck down in the line of duty. we're going to be putting something up hopefully in the coming seg. s to let you at lea-- segments.

i do nated. many others did as well. if you are sitting there wondering what can i do to help the fbi and the proud men and women being attacked be i the president of the united states every day, that's one thing you can do, help their families, the fbi agents association. now, back to willie. >> and benjamin witis will be with us later on in the show. >> in november we started delivering f-52s and 95-35 fighter jets. >> the president touts a delivery of quote f-52 fighter jets to norway. >> hey, willie, great news, he plays "call of duty." f-52s, the best fighters in can the call of duty." i bet he has a head set. >> he's leak you, he plays the 7th graders and talks trash while he shoots them? >> talks trash to a 7th grader

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welcome back to "morning joe." if you're just waking up, we've been talking about a wide range of issues from north korea to the fbi to the president's comments yesterday made according to washington post at a meeting of senators as they discussed a big daca deal which would be a big achievement on both sides. the president according to to people in the room saying, quote, why are we having all these people coming from s-hole countries come here. he used the word s-hole. your visceral reaction yesterday when you first heard it? >> i was on "deadline" when the

story hit. he's a bigot. he's a racist. we need to stop dancing around that. some of us. the second thought that came to mind is despite his bigotry and racism, he has an opportunity. ever since i've been aware of politics as a young black boy growing up in mississippi, i've had to deal and navigate racial dog whistles. ronald reagan declaring his presidency in mississippi. bill clinton invoking super predators. barack obama in the vistea part. it's been a part of politics since can i remember. it's always the case that republicans, or doc democrats,

they were appealing to the worst angels of the 33%. now, donald trump doesn't trade in dog whistles. he uses a frickin' fog horn. for the first time we have at least to my mind, an underbelly of political life made explicit. it's easy for us to declare this is bad and we shouldn't do it and those of us who show our liberal parts we can announce it, but we actually have an opportunity to finally rid ourselves of the racial undertone of american politics. the question is not the easy condemnation. will we do it? >> here's the scary part to me and we'll know in november. we'll really know in november 2020, if the democrats run a bernie sanders or an elizabeth warren, i think this country would reelect a racist. i do believe that. >> what does that say about us? >> at the end of the day, people

are more concerned about their pocketbooks than fair play. i believe if you gave them an alternative, my pocketbook will be okay, and i can still feel good about electing the good guy. if it's we're really swinging left and it's going to affect the dollars, a lot of those suburban white voters that drifted to trump 1999 think would drift back -- >> we're more comfortable racists than -- >> i think that's a bigger part of this country. i hope i'm proven wrong, but it scare me. >> we'll have more on this, plus the president cancels his trip to london and puts the blame on barack obama. we'll have a fact check on that. spoiler alert, he's wrong. and the latest with the russia probe. "morning joe" is coming right back. my mom's pain from

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i have so many friends from haiti, they're great people. they're amazing people. >> the haitian american community means so much to our country. perseverance, entrepreneurship which is true. really great entrepreneurs. i know one of them. creativity, faith. a lot of faith. all the things that make america good and strong can be found right here.

the haitian/american community deserves our gratitude and our respect. and i want you to know you have my respect. the haitian people deserve better, and that's what i intend to give them. ly give them better. we have a lot of commonly shared values. maybe full shared values. i'm wanting to be president of all americans. that's everybody, and whether you vote for me or you don't vote for me, i really want to be your greatest champion, and i will be your champion. i'm running to represent haitian americans and african americans and asian americans and everyone who lawfully resides in our borders. >> okay. well, what a difference a year makes, i guess. that's donald trump talking about how much he loves and respects the haitian people and everything about the haitian people except for the s-hole

country where haitian people come from. willie, it's -- this has been quite a week. michael wolff's book came out. you had questions about whether this president is fit to continue in office. you've had him seem to make more inflammatory statements over the past two or three days to suggest that he's not fit to be president of the united states. if not mentally fit, then certainly not morally fit, and this just makes you circle back to everything including the statements that he made a couple of weeks ago in a meeting that white house aides denied which now are a perfect overlay of what he said yesterday. >> yeah. to put it mildly, he's been all over the map. when you talk about daka when he was confused about his position in the meeting that we got to watch on television. yesterday his position on fiza

change. there's a story about why he's not going to have a meeting with our closest ally in the uk. he has bad information about that that he's putting out and now this, mika with the morning off, we have national affairs analyst for msnbc, john heilemann, donny deutsche, eddie gloud junior and heidi przybyla, and walter isakson, kimberly atkins and andrea mitchel. we have a full house. good morning to everybody. here is the context of the president's reported comment that joe referenced at the top of the show. a bipartisan group of senators led by lindsey graham and dick

durbin struck a deal on immigration. it would provide a 10-year path to citizenship for daca recipients and those i believe to apply. it would authorize 2.8 billion for border security. it would cut the visa lottery program by 50%. senators graham and durbin talk the proposal to the white house where the post reports they were surprised to find immigration hard liners. white house and capitol hill aides told the post that aide steven miller was concerned a deal proposed might be too liberal and made sure conservative lawmakers were present. when they discussed protecting immigrants from haiti, and african countries, several post sources briefed on the meeting claimed president trump said the following. quote, why are we having all these people from s-hole countries come here, except he used the word.

trump suggested the united states should bring more people from norway whose prime minister he met with on wednesday. the language was confirmed to us. two conversatiosources said he we need more haitians? take them out. someone responded in the room if you do, it will be obvious why. >> the slip we played coming in when the president was trying to win the haitian/american vote in south florida. >> a long way we've come. and john, let's break this down politically. we've already talked about how morally repugnant and how racist the comments are and how offensive it is that any elected leader let alone the president of the united states would make them. let's talk about this in a backdrop of where republicans stand right now facing historically bad odds, historically long adds if you look at just about every generic

ballot tests. they're getting pounded by at least 14 or 15 points by democrats. lock at t look at the state houses in virginia and the state of alabama. that historic contest. you look at historical races into pennsylvania and across the country. republicans are getting walloped because of how offensive donald trump is thinking this is 1972 and there's a southern strategy. there is no southern strategy anymore. it doesn't even work in the deep south. so what's the long-term impact on republicans as the president continues to make racist remarks? >> it's pretty bleak, i think. and you pointed out in the first hour, alabama is maybe the most on point analogy here. we looked at the exit polls from alabama. we were down there with the

show. we saw a large part of the reason why dug jones was able to win was because of the rallying and enthusiasm and energy among african american voters, particularly african american women who turned out in record numbers. the notion that donald trump, it reinforces his racially driven an mouse, his racism he demonstrates over and over, and another point you made last hour, importantly he's not repudiated by anybody in the republican party. mitch mcconnell and paul ryan are not standing up immediately after the meeting for -- to this point this morning, not 24 hours later but 12, 14, 16 hours, no one is standing up and saying this president's racism is repugnant. the republican party's complicity with republican is a problem where democrats are enthused and particularly with

the coalition of the insin dent, the nonwhite voters are energ e energized. these kind of comments will rebound to the republican party's detriment unless they find a way to distance themselves. it may be too late now. >> i think it's too late now. they simply refuse to show any moral courage when it comes to standing up to the racist comments made by the president of the united states, and we've seen this time and again. and andrea, when you talk about this coalition, yes, it's black americans and hispanic americans and asian americans. it's the people who are bolting away from the republican party for some time. you also have young millennials out there who now two-thirds of young ma lin yillennials breaki from the republican party. this expedites that. is this why we see people like

roy royce and so many other republican chair women and chairmen bolting and going home instead of having to run a campaign with donald trump on the top line? >> yeah. record numbers of important veteran, seasoned republican chairs and leading members of congress leaving as you know over 30 members having decided not to run for reelection. some of them term limited in having the gavel being the chairs as ed royce was. the fact is that especially as we know in high tax states like california, they're facing a real head win because of anger over the way that issue was treated in the tax bill. but it certainly also signals frustration and fear that they are about to lose their power. that the house is about to turn, because of all of these incredible statements coming from this president. there's no question that they're racist. they didn't even bother to deny

it. and there's a lot of reporting out of the white house that they were happy with it because it reassures the base. that gets to what eddie and others were saying and john earlier that this is exactly what he often does after signaling a couple of days ago with the leadership meeting and that televised meeting in the cabinet room that he was willing to compromise, and you saw the blowback immediately. >> yeah. >> this also has real foreign policy implications which we can talk about, because the decision not to go to london which is clearly because they do not want him there, and there a lot of pushback from the brits after his retweeting of that racist anti-muslim video that the british government and maybe even the royal family does not want him there. >> yeah, and walter, we all know about this southern strategy. it worked pretty effectively 50 years ago. it worked pretty effectively

when george wallace was running for president in 1968. it works in 1972 for nixon, but we're 46 years removed from '72. 50 years removed from '68. and it's just not working anymore. as john heilemann said, we have a coalition, and adding real fuel to that coalition, are young millennials who will soon be the largest voting group in america, and they're offended by donald trump's racist statements, and are put off by a republican party that is so morally compromised by donald trump that they can't even speak truth to power when he makes clearly racist comments. >> yeah. i mean, when you talk about the southern strategy, that's a euphemism for playing the race

card. that happened about 50 years ago with consistency. george wallace showed how to do it and nixon did it in a dog whistle way, and the problem with playing the race card and the problem with playing a southern strategy that way is not simply that it's politically ineffective these days. it's also morally abhorrent, and in the end that's going to catch up to you. i live in louisiana now. it's where i grew up. we have john bell edwards, a democratic governor and a new democratic mayor of new orleans. it's because there's a resistance morally in the long run to just being outright racist. you just can't justify it to your neighbors and yourself, and it may work short term politically, but it's not going to be sustainable. >> walter, you know what's so fascinating and why i don't understand why donald trump can't grasp this.

perhaps he has trouble these days grasping basic concepts, but the southern strategy? it didn't even work in alabama a month ago. alabama elected the first democrat in a quarter century to go to the senate, and they did it against a man who wanted to get rid of the 13th and the 14th amendment, wanted to get rid of women's rights to vote, and in the state of alabama, a place -- you know, we used to put it on the license plates, the heart of dixie. even in the heart of dixie the southern strategy just didn't work, and it doesn't work anymore. >> well, yeah. and the problem with what i think what you said was that he should know that politically it wasn't a smart move. that's not why he said what he said about haiti and the african countries. he wasn't make a political

calculus. that came from his heart. he basically made the racist comments because he believed them. not because they were in his interest. >> let me go to kimberly here. eddie made the point earlier that there are dog whistles and then there are bull horns. there are moments when you have to interpret what's being said, and sometimes the words are right out in front of you. and what the president is alleged to have said yesterday, i'll read it again, quote, while are we ahaving all these people d from, quote, s-hole countries come here? >> i agree this was the president. he should know the things he says will get out. this was the president showing openly exactly who he is. there's the quote by maya ang lieu, when somebody shows you who they are, believe them the first type. donald trump has been showing us this is who he is for decades

ever since he called for the central park five to be put to death and during the campaign in 2016, refused to take it back and criticized new york city for entering a settlement with them. this is where he said that mexican immigrants were rapists and criminals and talked about banning muslims coming from the country and criticized a judge because he's a mexican, as he put it. although he's an american. we have seen this coming from donald trump. it is a part of who he is. and with respect to the southern strategy, i actually disagree. i think he does think something like the southern strategy does work for him. look, when it works in a way in 2016. he won on the white vote. he energized white voters and that put him over the top in the electoral college, but i think you are also right that things are changing. if you look at the poll where it

broke down demographically where his support is, he no longer has white women, and especially in the senate races and congressional races coming up in november. white women, white suburban women are a crucial demographic. i think this is going to backfire very much not just for him in 2020 but for republicans in 2018. it is a political problem. but i don't think he realizes it is. >> yeah. donny deutsche, the reason we did the show in alabama in mountainbrook was because it was an area that was mainly white, highly educated, suburban well to do voters that had voted republican in every single race for as long as i can remember. as long as republicans started -- for as long as republicans started to win races there, but they switched.

and they went democratic for doug jones. following up on that, he's going to get absolutely mauled politically. republicans are -- again, we're talking about this ascendant coalition. now you add white educated voters to that. millennials of all races, and she was talking about a poll from the past week. he's even lost a great deal of support from white noncollege voters. he's bleeding support in every single area, and if it's bad for him, it's even worse for republicans who stand meekly behind him. >> joe, i hope you're right for all the obvious reasons. i want to throw out a hypothe s hypothesis. i touched on it before the break. i want to go back to alabama.

and eddie brings up the point off camera, that this was a pedophile, a racist who said things that go so far beyond trump and he won by two points. i want to caution the democrats, and i would love people's theory on this. my concern is even though it says only 33%, that when trump talks that way, there are, i think even more people unfortunately that agree with him. and if the democrats go so far left with a bernie sanders or elizabeth warren, i think there is a big part -- and it's sad -- of this country that will hold their nose and stay with trump, and that ascendantascendantsy w hoping and talking about might not happen. >> i think the democratic party, there's a civil war in the democratic party, progressives are trying to take over the party. and they're going to push it

left. and it seems to me there's a day of reckoning. we'll have to encounter this, and we're going to have to encounter it head on. we can no longer stick our heads in the sand. one of the things that's interesting. remember when we were saying this was president bannon behind this. this was bannonism driving it? we know steven bannon understood that there was a dimension of trumpism that connected with his understanding of white populism, his understanding of white nationalism. it seems to me that trump is evidencing clearly that this is not bannon. this is him. it's not steven miller. it's trump. and if i take you at your word, it's not just simply trump. it's a large percentage of the country. >> this is him off the cuff and at heart. >> a lot of people heard that that said yeah. >> just say one thing, it is a little bit, and we talked this morning about as if there a binary here, a choice.

either donald trump is speaking from his heart or it's part of a political strategy. it is both. he's demonstrated throughout his life he's a racisracist, and th reinforcement of winning the presidency. i think he's political and with democrats and know the things he says are going to get out. he speaks his heart because he thinks the people from those countries are less than human in some way. they're both true. >> you know what this will do at a minimum? it opens up a very necessary dialogue, because up until this point there have been many people who have been able to say and believe that the donald trumps asclimb was based on the anxious of white voters. there was no way to poll racism in a poll. people have a lot of opinions about how to test this.

this will open a dialogue that's necessary. we're talking about merit-based immigration. we're peeling the scab off when we throw down numbers about people being very educated. when you e liliminate that, you just talking about race. >> does doug jones win without the pedophile allegations? does he win just based on the eventual being an out and out racist? i don't think he does. >> i don't know. i heard a lot of republicans say beforehand, i certainly said beforehand as a former republican that i could never vote for a guy like roy moore. that was before all the allegations. you know, people in the state of alabama knew roy moore. they knew this guy had been kicked off of the state supreme court. knew he was kicked off the court twice as a judge. the last time he ran for governor, he came in fourth in the republican primary.

that's a good question to ask. it's a question whose answer we will never know, but willie, so much of what we saw in alabama, so much of what we saw in virginia, so much of what we heard when we were in mountain brook, alabama were republicans coming up to us saying i am no part of this. >> yep. >> this is not my president. this is not the party i grew up with. i'm going out today and i'm voting for a democrat for the first time in my life. it reminded me of what we all heard when we were at java joes in january of 2008 when everybody came up to us and said we're republicans, but we're voting for this obama guy. >> yeah. and to kimberly's point, those were a lot of white women in mountain brook coming up and saying that same thing, i can't stand for roy moore.

i want to turn to something that would have been a screaming headline any other day. president trump's visit to london is off. he announced the news on twitter. although it's common during his presidency, he blames president obama. trump wrote, the reason i cancelled my trip to london is that i am lot a big fan of the obama administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in london for peanuts only to build a new one in an off location for $1.2 billion. bad deal. wanted me to cut ribbon. no. end quote. well, the decision and first steps to relocate the embassy came in october of 2008 when george w. bush was president. it came primarily because of security concerns. the uk's daily mail reports president trump was disappointed in lack of pop and royal involvement. massive protests were expected

to greet trump who is deeply unpopular in london. this was on the cover of "daily mirror". this morning london's mayor who trump attacked immediately after last year's london bridge terror attack writes on twitter this. quote, many lond donners have made it clear donald trump is not welcome here. it seems he finally got that message. that is from the mayor of london. andrea mitchel, there's a lot to sift through, but the bottom line is president trump got all his facts wrong in that tweet. >> absolutely. and not by accident. look, to blame president obama for a decision that was made by president bush and the bush administration as a result of the inman report, the commission convened basically to say you had to set all embassies back from the street. you had to protect them. the neighbors on groveners

square were not happy with the concrete barriers around the embassy. it was right there in the square. there were a lot of angry feelings about this. the embassy goes back to john adams. this is a location that was dwight eisenhower's wartime head quarters in london. it's centrally located and beautiful, but the fact is it had to be moved, and this is a process that takes place in the state department where there are endless studies. it is the most incredibly bureaucratic process to decide where a new embassy will be, and how it's designed. all of that preceded president obama's administration. the fact is he was not welcome. it have not a state visit. he was not getting a royal welcome. the palace had no interest in this. the government and mayor made it clear, and all because of the racism he's projected which is not welcome in europe, and it

goes to europe's alliance yesterday in brussels against u.s. and against the trump administration and how angry he was with the macron call from france yesterday. many policy advisers feared it would get him to reverse his anticipated decision today to again kick the ball down -- forward and not reimpose central bank and oil sanctions. there's so much antipathy in europe. he's not just angering africa and latin and south america and haiti. today on the anniversary of the incredible earthquake, the fact is he is angering the world and isolating the united states. it's the racism he's projecting. >> yes. this is the eight-year an v anniversary of that earthquake

in haiti. andrea, thank you so much. >> walter, we sometimes have to pause and talk through these moments because there are so many of them. they tend to fly by so fast. we're talking about great britain, the special relationship, our closest ally that our president can't go there without massive protests in the streets without the royal family turning their backs to him. his reaction to not getting the royal reception he thinks he deserves is to create a narrative that's completely ungrounded in fact with what he wrote on twitter about president obama. >> you're right about the flood of these things. day after day. i don't know how you do it every morning on this show. it's like drinking from a fire hose. it keeps coming at you. that means people are stepping back and seeing the big picture. when you were talking about in alabama people coming up and saying i'm not part of this. where's paul ryan? where's lindsey graham and mitch mcconnell saying on the show i'm

not part of this? somehow it's become so normalized that he's saying all these things untrue or racist or lies and people say let's see what tomorrow's tweets will bring. >> let's sit in it far minute. this is our closest ally, the special relationship and the president of the united states feels he cannot visit because of the protests that will greet him there. it's not just that he cancelled the visit, but now he's telling the story about president obama as an excuse to get himself out of it. >> right, and he does have a knack for blaming president obama for things often president obama had nothing to do with. blaming obama is not helping him look -- making the statement he made about african and asian countries look any less racist. it shows this president trump who so much wants to be praised and celebrated is not going to

be praised or celebrate first down he goes to london because of his own doing. things like tweeting those videos purporting to show muslim violence. i'm pretty sure at the time he tweeted that, he probably didn't consider the effect it would have on allies like london and how difficult it would be as andrea said to do things like foreign policy and talking about iran, talking about north korea and other important things that we need our allies on our side in dealing with. he doesn't think so far ahead. he was looking to get retweeted by his supporters in that. and other things he says that is so divisive that causes unintended consequences. i think this is one of those unintended consequences. one that means a lot to him. that if he goes there, he will be met by protests and that's one reason he doesn't want to go. and certainly members of officials mps and others in the great britain agree with that.

>> yeah. >> it's also so unusual for the royal family to have suddenly sucked themselves into this. when we talk about people saying i'm no part of this, whether t people in alabama or people like lindsey graham who have lost the ability to say that. the fact that the queen would in a significant but subtle way saying i'm no part of this, really it's amazing to me. and it should be a lesson to us here. >> remember the saudis projected the president's face on the side of his oettlhotel. now he's not going to go if he doesn't get it in great britain. still ahead on "morning joe," how wisconsin is quietly becoming the top senate race of 2018. outside conservative groups have spent more against tammy baldwin than all her democratic colleagues combined. she joins our conversation here in new york next on "morning joe." i no longer live with the uncertainties of hep c.

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joe." joining us now, tammy baldwin of wisconsin. senator, great to have you with us in new york. >> great to join you. >> we want to talk policy and talk about your race. i have to ask you about be president's comments yesterday. he tweeted the language used by me at the daca meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. what was really tough was the outlandish proposal made a big setback for daca. he admits to i guess using tough language, as he calls it, but says the reporting from the washington post, forgive the term about s-hole countries wa inaccurate. your reaction to the tone? >> obviously i wasn't in the meeting yesterday or the one a couple of days earlier, but my focus is to keep our promise to

these d.r.e.a.m.ers who have known no other country than america as their home. and in trying to get that job done, you have to realize the president has contradicted himself probably 20 typimes in e last three days. if we're going to try to get this over the finish line and try to get this done, let's be selective. let's take him at his word when he said i'll sign what you send me. let's keep on working and try to get something through both houses of congress. and if it's sitting on his desk, it will be on him. he wants to shutdown the government over a wall, he can do that, but it will be on him. and at the same meeting he said i'll sign whatever you send us, he said he loved the d.r.e.a.m.ers. this is so full of contradictions, and including whatever he did actually say yesterday is deeply disturbing

and sickening if it was what was reported. >> as we watched the meeting two days ago, the 55-minute televised meeting, we saw republicans jumping in to correct the president. kevin mccarthy saying this isn't what we believe, mr. president. joe and others have asked why people like joe ryan and mitch mcconnell haven't stepped forward more strongly when he says what he's alleged to have said about things like haitian immigrants. when you talk to your colleagues in the senate, what do they say about him that they're not saying publicly? >> they certainly express huge frustration, especially those who like me are in the senate to fight for the constituents who sent us there, to fight for our states. i think the conflict in terms of whether they speak out or not is wanting to get stuff done, and i know right now obviously we're

talking about getting -- keeping our promise to the d.r.e.a.m.ers who are contributing to america and should not -- should get a chance to stay in the only country they've known, but we're also talking about a budget deal that's hugely consequential. we're talking about in my state i have tens of thousands of retired people who have the prospect of losing their pension because of a crisis that we're not attending to. we have the children's health insurance program with 9 million american children mostly children of working poor parents at risk of not having insurance. and it goes on. community health centers that might have to shut. >> senator, a ligt over the politics now. it would look like the democrats might have a good year coming up in 2018, but you're defending a lot of seats as a party, and you're in particular seeing a

high level of spending by outside conservative groups. the number is 3 .1 million. that's more than all your colleagues combined. what's going on in wisconsin and why do they see an opportunity there? >> it's more than that. one obvious fact, wisconsin has always been a battle ground state. but i think this spending which in terms of media bias we've seen well over 5 million so far in 2017. the off year. i think it goes beyond that. i think in some ways it's personal. i have been unafraid to stand up to the powerful interests that fund these superpacs, and make these expenditures on behalf of the people who sent me to washington. so whether it's standing up to pharmaceutical companies that jack up the prices of life-saving medications that my constituents rely on and i've

teamed up with john mccain on a transparency and accountability bill for the companies or whether it's standing up to the washington bureaucracy on trying to make progress on issues like buy american, or standing up to wall street and hedge funds who have ended -- closed a couple of companies in wisconsin. the activists, in particular, and they take note of who is standing up. >> let me to expand on heidi's question, you're going to be in a competitive race. scott walker is running for election. you guys are almost a perfect window into a trump swing state. just talk about the political dynamics, not just the money but what you're looking at in a race where scott walker is running for reelection.

republicans are highly motivated to get out. and donald trump has presumably lost altitude in your state. >> one of the things i've seen change over time is we've always been a battle ground state, but we are sadly a lot more polarized than i remember in early years. fewer ticket splitters. and just a deeply held partisan views. i've seen that change over time. but i think 2018 will be a lot about the field and a lot about who turns out to the polls. and what i see in my state and across the country, perhaps starting from election day in 2016, perhaps starting from the day after the inauguration is just the incredible engagement, the indivisible groups, the move on groups, the march on washington organizing groups. i wondered whether that energy

would stay and remain through the year, and it has. it's going strong. i think that's going to bode well for massive turnout among progressives and swing voters. >> a lot of people watching the race closely this year. senator tammy baldwin, thank you for being here. still ahead, president trump tweeted what he meant when he said republicans should finally take control of the russia investigation. plus the firing for which the president says he doesn't get enough credit. we're back in a moment. at at&t, buy one iphone 8 and get one on us. that's one for you, and one for... your bbf. your backup singer. your frenemy. your boo. your roomie.

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the president is clarifying the tweet in which he you recollected republicans to, quote, finally take control of the russia investigation. he says in an interview it should not be interpreted as an order to shut it down saying, quote, i just want them to be tough. be strong. he also said, quote, of course there was no obstruction. there was no crime. they make up a crime and the crime doesn't exist and then they say obstruction. everybody wanted comey fired. i should be given credit for insight. >> and we have reporting on the russia investigation coming up.

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you think it's still a pocket that president trump will fire bob mueller? >> well, i think that's a distinct possibility. every time i've said he couldn't possibly do that, he's done it. and this would be one of those instances where i'd say he couldn't possibly fire bob mueller. i think the possibility exists. >> if he does fire mueller, is that in your view an impeachment offense, to be impeached for doing that? >> yeah. i think you then are in impeachment territory unlike any clinton scenario, i think you're then in impeachment territory. i think for this nation, that has to be seen as a red line. criticizing the department i think is unacceptable. you should be castigated for that. if he fires bob mueller, there has to be a serious consequence. >> that is the voice of eric holder from the first episode of

skull duggary. and the host is joining us, michael isikoff and daniel colliden. >> how does it feel? you're stars. you have your own podcast. >> one thing we know is there's going to be plenty of material. >> we were half joking and said, you said this is going to be able the scandals in the trump era. you're only a year in and have plenty of episodes. let's focus, michael, on eric holder. what jumped out, what did he say to you that stayed with you? >> certainly these comments about mueller, and i should say, we're coming to a critical moment here where mueller is going to want to interview trump. trump seems to be dodging as to whether he'll take the interview. actually, the peg for this, our opening episode is today or tomorrow actually, the 20th

anniversary of the clinton-lewinsky scandal. it's the day ken starr wired for the monica lewinsky. that's the last time a president was impeached. it's worth remembering the critical moment in that scandal was ken starr, the independent counsel, subpoenaed bill clinton and forced him to testify. so the question now with mueller is, if trump dodges and resists a voluntary interview, will mueller do what ken starr did and subpoena the president? >> michael, let me ask you from 30,000 feet since you've been through this before, where are we in this investigation? you have two of the president's men who pled guilty to federal crimes and are now cooperating with the investigation and two of the president's men charged

with federal crimes and facing possibly a lifetime in prison. where do you think we are in this investigation, in this scandal? >> if you take things under a microscope, you've got to put the manafort-gates stuff off to the side. that involves conduct that doesn't directly involve donald trump or his campaign. the two wild cards are michael flynn and george papadopoulos, both of whom are cooperating and talking to mueller. we don't know what they are saying, and i think a lot hinges on that. flynn clearly was very close to the president. they were side by side, in the bunker as one of his friends said, during the campaign, he was there. and most critically even after he gets fired, and we reported this at yahoo! they stayed in touch. there was a story i did back

last spring in which flynn was telling friends he just got the message from the president to stay strong. that was pretty eyebrow raising. what was the nature of those communications and did they involve the investigation? i can't answer you because i don't know what flynn is saying. >> brother daniel, tell me what you think that mueller will do now to get trump to talk? >> first of all, there's so many precedence for presidents giving these interviews to special prosecutors. it goes back to gerald ford actually, and squeaky fromme in the assassination case. i don't think that trump has much leverage here. usually the leverage that a defense lawyer has in these kinds of cases is my client is just going to take the fifth. well, that's a near impossibility for a president. now, this is a president who

does tend to break norms so perhaps he'd do that. i think we'll see bob mueller -- >> by the way, i think he's congenitally unable to take the fifth. >> he's going to want to talk. people say he has a lot of practice doing this in all this civil litigation and he can be disciplined. hard to imagine, but in these kind of instances he can be. boy, it's going to be tough for a guy as experienced as mueller, backed up by some of the best prosecutors in this country. so this is going to happen some way or another. >> michael, over the summer, a lot of republicans were talking like we just heard eric holder talk, that firing mueller would be crossing a red line. you saw a rush to come together with bipartisan legislation to protect mueller. that's petered out. how concerning is that given how far he's closing in on this investigation? >> look, i'm not quite sure it's necessary. i think it's pretty clear if he goes the step that holder was talking about, there will be an

uproar and we are in impeachment territory and i think the white house knows that. any, he could fire mueller, but i think he will do so knowing that there will be really big consequen consequences. holder said something else that is relevant to this episode. as i mentioned, this is the 20th anniversary of the lewinsky scandal, and we talked about looking back 20 years later what were holder's thoughts on it. he did say that he didn't think the president should have been impeached, but that censure was something that should have been looked at. i wonder today, in light of the comments that trump made yesterday, whether we're going to hear talk about a censure resolution by congress, just over these comments, not related to russia, although they could be expanded. >> if i had to guess right now, still a lot more to come out i'm sure, but i think in all likelihood what happens is mueller decides that the president can't be indicted and

there's a lot of legal opinions behind that at the justice department and elsewhere. what he's vently does, he sends a report up to congress. actually he can't do that directly. he sends it to rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general and rosenstein feels pressure to send it to congress. and then if the democrats are in charge, congress commence impeachment proceedings. that's the likely outcome i think. >> the new podcast is called skull dugry, already flying up the itunes charts. few reporters know it better than mike itzkoff. appreciate it. the president tweeted moments ago that he did not say what he's accused of saying during a meeting with lawmakers. yesterday the white house did not deny it. many people in the room confirmed to nbc news that he did say it. meanwhile, the president also refuses to say whether or not

he's spoken with the leader of north korea, but then claims the two, quote, probably have a very good relationship. we'll try to figure out what that means when "morning joe" comes right back.

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i can be more presidential than anybody. >> shocking comments by president trump in the oval office. >> i know words, i have the best words. >> he attacks immigrants from africa and haiti. >> the haitian people deserve

better. >> why do we want these people from, quote, all these s hole countries here. >> i know the words, the best words. there's no better word than stupid. >> welcome to "morning joe." here we go again. this, of course, is the same president who was accused several weeks ago of saying that we don't want people from haiti to come to the united states because they all had aids, also made director comments about people coming -- i believe it was from nigeria once they left their huts, they would never want to go back. this, of course, from what i saw yesterday ignores the evidence that the immigrants that come to america from nigeria actually have a higher education level than americans. so there you go. willie, more ignorant spewing from a president who i thought was going to spend this week trying to prove that he's fit for office and he hasn't lost a step mentally, but these bizarre

rantings and ravings, i'll just say, it sounds like grandpa sitting in front of the tv set when he's getting old and losing it and the sort of thing where you say, you can't say that grandpa, be quiet. except this guy is president of the united states and the damage it does, especially when paul ryan, mitch mcconnell and other republicans remain silent in the face of such hatred and bigotry. >> only a small handful, joe, of republicans coming out last night and condemning what the president is alleged to have said according to "the washington post." we'll get into the specifics of what he said. interesting distinction, though, those comments you talked about, the aids comment and the huts comment, those were denied by the white house. this time the white house not denying the president said it, perhaps because there were bipartisan members of congress sitting in the room who could corroborate what happened. it's friday, january 12th. we have john heilemann, donny

deutsche, chair of the department of african-american studies eddie glaude, junior and white house reporter for "usa today" heidi przybilla. we're thrilled to announce in this moment, in two weeks she will be joining nbc news as a national political reporter. that's great news. congratulations. >> thank you. i'm thrilled. you've already got a powerhouse team. i'm thrilled to be able to contribute to it. >> willie, we have "kc dc." >> i can't steel k.c.'s thunder bolt. have to come up with something else. let's get into the context of the president's reported comment as far as we know it. a bipartisan group of senators led by south carolina republican lindsey graham and illinois democrat dick durbin struck a deal on immigration.

reports say it would provide a decade-long path to citizenship for those in the daca program and eligible to apply. required green cardholders to complete the citizenship process before sponsoring adult children and cut the visa lottery program by 50%. >> willie, that's pretty expensive stuff right there. >> that is. >> this is what i think we were talking about, democrats and republicans, liberals and conservatives, people from urban areas, coming together and doing the people's work. what in the world could get in the way of that? >> here it comes, joe. senators graham and durbin took the proposal to the white house where "the washington post" reports they were surprised to find congressman bob goodlatte and senator tom cotton, white house and capitol hill aides said aide stephen miller was concerned there could be a deal proposed that was too liberal. he made sure conservative

lawmakers were in the room. when they discussed protecting immigrants from haiti, el salvador and african countries, several post sources say president trump said this, quote, why are we having all these people from s hole countries come here, except he, of course, used the word. president trump then suggested the united states should instead bring more people from countries like norway whose prime minister he just met with on wednesday. the democratic aide confirmed the language to nbc news. two sources briefed on the conversation tell nbc news president trump also said, quote, why do we need more haitians. take them out. someone else in the room responded, because if you do, it will be obvious why. so, joe, the white house did not deny the president's reported comments when it issued a statement from principle deputy press secretary rod shaw. quote, certain washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but president trump will always fight for the american people. the president will only accept an immigration deal that

adequately addresses the visa lottery system and chain migration to programs that hurt our economy and allow terrorists into our country. not denying, not even addressing the comments. i'm not sure what it meant to say there are members of congress working and fighting for foreign governments. pus that aside for a moment, joe. just your first reactions? >> there are so many reactions. first after all, it's so deeply offensive. i can't imagine any other president ever serving in that office making such derogatory comments. first of all, they're i'm mofrl, they're insensitive. they undercut allies, important allies. and so it's beyond the pale. but secondly, politically, if you are working inside the house and your goal is to prove this

is a rational, sane president, this isn't a ppt that lost a step mentally, if this is not a president in the early stages of dementia, that can't control some of this things he blurts out of his mouth, this comes at a particularly bad time certainly following all the revelations of the wolfe book. john heilemann, finally, as these sort solve statements are being made, you can literally see people in suburbs streaming to the polls like they did in northern virginia, like women did in northern virginia, like highly educated people did in alabama, like millennials are doing. millennials who have been bolting away from the republican party because of this president are doing it specifically for this reason. so now you've got -- you're going to have three out of four millennials now probably voting for democrats in the election. and finally, john, and of course

this is perhaps the most shocking thing to me, because we have learned over the past year that donald trump will use any inflammatory racist language for political gain, but, of course, it keeps him at 33%. the biggest shock is how, if you're paul ryan, if you're mitch mcconnell, both men who have admirable backgrounds when it comes to race -- if you're paul ryan or mitch mcconnell or you're ted cruz or you are anybody who hopes one day to leave this country -- mike pence, how do you not come out and immediately condemn this, not three days later after you talk through it, but immediately condemn this language? how do you not do that? let's focus on paul ryan and mitch mcconnell. how do they do that? >> happy to focus on paul ryan

and mitch mcconnell. i will say, joe, to your initial comment about this, this is the kind of thing your grandfather says when he's old and losing it in front of the television, that's true if your grandfather is a racist. it's not everybody's grandfather who talks like that to the television, only those that don't like brown skin people. >> i didn't mean to -- >> i know you didn't. we're on the same page. >> my grandfather was just fine. let me just say, everybody knows that grand dad and grand mom and people with early onset of dementia -- i know this -- say things they would have never said five or six years ago. just ask members of my family and my mom about how they'll say stinging things about you or other people. >> i know, i know. >> now that you have made me put in 18 caveats, go ahead, john heilemann. >> i wanted to put a fine point at it. that was not directed at you in

any way. we've got a lot of evidence now. it's not news that the president is a racist, but this is again a pretty striking demonstration of that being true. so you raise the question of mitch mcconnell and paul ryan. you will recall, joe, vividly that 18 months ago when president trump, then candidate trump engaged in one of his first blatant -- outwardly blatant acts of racism when he add tacked judge curiel, the mexican judge from indiana, paul ryan came out in an act of considerable and notable courage and said this is a textbook definition of racism and said he wouldn't tolerate it. it's now 18 months later and pretty much from that moment when ryan did that thing, he's not taken a stand like that ever since, and there have been repeated provocations of a racial kind by president trump, and for reasons that we have talked about ad nauseam on this show, republican leaders have basically decided that, a, it's

in their somehow, some weird ideological policy interest to look the other day about all the depredations of the president. >> john, how do you -- i understand staying silent on policy matters. i understand saying silent on just about anything if you have a president in your own party. i do not understand how anybody who is a leader of the republican party in 2017 remains silent like paul ryan and mitch mcconnell and everybody else up and down the line when you're talking about racism. >> joe, just to be clear. i wasn't saying they're silent on policy. they obviously think having a republican president is in their ideological best interest in the long run. they continue to think trump is a vehicle for advancing their policy agenda even as he says these horrible things. i obviously agree with you. the only answer to the question

at this point, it seems to me, is they're morally bankrupt and politically myopic. morally bankrupt in the sense that you shouldn't tolerate this under any circumstances. politically myopic to your point, that trump is doing extraordinary long-term damage to the brand of the republican party, to the image of the republican party, people looking at the republican party saying this guy is willing to tolerate a racist. i think the republican party is not for me anymore. i guess paul ryan and mitch mcconnell don't say that. >> quote, why are we having all these people from s hole countries come here. some people who defended the president said, you look at a place like haiti, african nations have big problems. he said it inartfully, but his point is taken. the problem with that defense is he wasn't just talking about the countries, he was talking about the people, the people who come

from those countries. i was thinking about the people we interact with every day in new york city, a cab driveer from haiti organ nah who is so proud to be here, so happy to be here, working so hard while they're here, so invested in our politics and system. they watch shows like this every day because they want to know everything they can about the country, they want to talk about the country. this is a massive insult to a large group of not just immigrants, but americans, people who come here looking for a better life. >> or the immigrant firefighter who kept running into that building who lost his life. two things are going on here, one is that after the 55-minute theater where trump seemed to suggest that he could separate this process, that folks thought he was soft, he was going soft, he was actually going towards the democratic side. here he's throwing a bone to his base, this rabid base. he comes out in some significant way as hard on immigration by in

some ways scapegoating these nations. that's the first thing. the second thing is this, the immigration debate has always carried with it an undertone of racism. the immigration debate -- not attributing this to everyone who holds the position, there's a sense in which immigration is driven by a deep anxiety about the browning of america, that how will we stem the tide, that this is no longer a white nation. ever since the first naturalization act of 1790 which only allowed citizenship to free white people, and it wasn't until 1952 that racial discrimination was not allowed fortunatization. then we saw racism all underneath the immigration act of 1965. there's always been this undertone, this overdetermination of immigration and naturalization debate about what kind of nation are we. what trump did yesterday was to make explicit the racist undertone of this debate. so some of us believe that some

of these folks -- maybe senator tom cotton -- are engaging in this debate in bad faith, that's what's driving it is this deep anxiety about the browning of america. so trump actually made explicit something that has been a part of this debate since the beginning. >> stim ahead on "morning joe," president trump had plenty of things to say yesterday, curse words aside. we'll talk to the "wall street journal" reporter who sat down inside the oval office for a wide-ranging interview. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. time to bask... in low prices!

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joe." president trump is speaking out about north korean leader kim jong-un. in ar interview with the "wall street journal" he says, quote, i probably have a very good relationship with kim jong un of north korea. i have relationships with people. i think you people are surprised. the reporter followed up, just

to be clear, you haven't spoken to the north korean leader. when you say a relationship with korea to which trump responded, quote, i don't want to comment on it. i don't want to comment. i'm not saying i have or i haven't. interestingly russian president putin said kim jong un is a shrewd and mature politician who obviously won this round against the west. let's bring in one of the "wall street journal" reporters who conducted the interview, peter nicholas and the dean of the fletcher school of law, retired admiral james defensive read dass. gentlemen, good morning. let me start with you, peter. first of all, the comment on kim jong un, did you read that as the president saying he has spoken directly to kim jong un or something he threw out there and put up a smoke screen to create confusion about the comment? >> we were quite surprised by it, because the united states doesn't have diplomatic

relations of any kind with north korea. here is the president saying, not only does he have a relationship with north korea's leader, but it's a good relationship. it begs the question, how did that come about? does that mean they've been conversing. we asked that question and followed up with him, didn't deny it or confirm it, there is -- we get a sense there is some back channel communication or dialogue of some kind that the white house is having at the highest levels with north korea's leader. >> admiral, obviously there was a back and forth between rex tillerson and the white house. talking about keeping diplomatic channels open between the united states and north korea. the president denigrating his own secretary of state time and time saying don't waste your time, rex, this is going nowhere. now we have the president saying he has a great relationship with kim jong un, a man he has insulted for the past year and a half or year.

can you enlighten us on what's going on? have you heard of any diplomatic back and forths between the president and kim jong un? >> absolutely not. i have a lot of conversations with people in washington. the least charitable version of this would be that the president has a new imaginary friend that he visits at night sometimes. i just find it so striking that he would throw that out there and then sort of dance away from it. he has done that repeatedly on issues. having said all that, joe, life is always compared to what, and compared to him hurling further insults and throwing fuel on an already smoldering fire, i guess this is better. it's all part of the mixed signals that hurt us not only in north korea but many other venues around the world. >> joe, something interesting

and you know him personally and have seen this. two elements to this. what he also said is, i can say 30 or 40 horrible things about somebody and then i'm friends with them the next day. so that is another interesting side. not only are the words completely fabricated, there's no sticking, it doesn't matter what i say, at any moment i can completely switch on somebody. >> that's why when some people talk about the end of his relationship with steve bannon, i said, you don't know donald trump, do you? maybe perhaps he'll never be back in touch with steve bannon. but if he has the discipline to cut bannon off and never talk to him again, bannon will be the first person in his 71 years to ever have gotten that treatment. >> that's a very good point. we asked about steve bannon. we talked about that relationship. he said he feels betrayed by bannon. he denied bannon had any positive role in his campaign.

he said other people helped me get elected. he pointed to hope hicks, his communications director who was in the room, said she did a lot more than steve bannon. he offered to take us around the white house and introduce us to people who contributed more to his victory than steve bannon. >> i'm kure yous. i didn't see jared kushner's name. did he give any credit to jared kushner. from everything i saw in the campaign, did more to put together the operation that ended up winning the campaign than anybody else. i did not hear jared's name mentioned. >> jared's name did not come up. sarah huckabee sanders was there. gary kohn was in the room, hope hicks was there. he didn't mention jared. we asked him at the end because he was pretty bitter about steve bannon again, talk about how bannon betrayed him. we said is this a permanent break, can we expect you won't have anymore dealings with ban

mon. he said i don't know the meaning of the word permanent. everything is transactional and tactical. people who are in the doghouse one dap might find themselves rehabilitated in the mind of the president the next. coming up on "morning joe," president trump accuses an fbi agent of treason while insulting the intel community about domestic spying. we'll talk to benjamin wittis a friend of jim comey's who is pushing back on behalf of the fbi.

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still ahead, the dow jones opens next hour on the heels of another record close, jumping more than 200 points in yesterday's session. what's in store for today? we'll check in with cnbc. there were plenty of mixed signals yesterday about domestic surveillance. we'll drill down on what the house vote on fisa really means for spying programs overseas and here at home. first, bill karins has a look at the forecast. >> arctic freeze is on the way on the heels of our january thaw. it's going to be a big whiplash. areas in kentucky seeing the big switch, areas of indiana, also.

here is the deal. it's negative 9 in minneapolis. that's the temperature. windchill is like negative 20. currently 65 in charlotte. everywhere in between the temperatures are quickly crashing. we have snow and rain in the middle of this mess. 66 million people under winter weather advisories all the way from greenville, mississippi, to northern maine and everywhere in between. notice the mid atlantic, you get spared with this storm. we also have the potential for flooding. we have the snowpack, the heavy rain over the next 24 hours. so much of southern new england into central new england, 31 million people have a flash flood watch. that means buffalo, syracuse, rochester and pittsburgh, under a into wither storm warning and flood watch at the salexact sam time. you can see the cold air moving in, switching over to snow soon in indianapolis. we have snow on the border of indiana and also kentucky, down through tennessee, too. the ice forecast doesn't look bad. i don't think we'll have a lot of power outages. watch out down east maine and

central pennsylvania. there's the snowfall forecast. this is from now to tomorrow morning. give you perspective. rochester, new york, 58 degrees. tomorrow at this time, windchill of zero and shoveling a foot of snow. hou how's that for a 24-hour change. washington, d.c. foggy conditions all morning long. your crash in temperatures will come saturday morning. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. remember our special night?

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thinking. i always say judge the president after four years. let's judge the president after what he eve done, not judge the president on what he says. >> my god, let's not judge the president on something he says if he says something that's racist? also, if the president is just saying what other people are thinking, well, the people that are thinking that are racists. is that a justification? of course it's not. that was ohio republican congressman running for the u.s. senate. he was speaking this morning on fox news, 15 hours of t"the washington post" published the story, president trump called immigrants from haiti, el salvador and african nations people from, quote, s-hole countries. the president says the so-called bipartisan daca deal presented

yesterday was a big step backwards added he wants a merit-based system to take our country to the next level. before accusing the democrats of, quote, not being interested in life and safety. quote, the language used by me at the daca meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. the president's denial came shortly after "fox & friends" host brian kilmeade denounced the comment and called on the president to apologize our clarify right away, and very good for brian kilmeade. we're back with john heilemann, donny deutsche and heidi przybilla. senior fellow at the brookings institute benjamin wittis, fellow from the london school of commission and author of "the despot's apprentice." former d.o.d. official and executive director of the wmd commission, senior fellow at

"the atlantic" council and msnbc security analyst, evelyn farkas. even beyond the president's remarks yesterday, if you look at what he said over the past three days, it's been a quite busy time for this president, trying to sound like an autocrat. he attacks the fbi again, he suggested the fbi use their power to rig the election against him in the election. accused a patriotic fbi agent of treason. he has told the republicans to take control of the mueller investigation. i could literally go on and on just in the anti democratic statements the president said over the last two or three days. is there any way to put this into perspective and what should lawmakers do? >> let me first say that i think it would have come as quite a

surprise to abraham lincoln when he was delivering the gettysburg address that we should not judge presidents by what they say. what presidents say is a big part of who they are. it's one of the essential things we judge them on. that point aside, look, one of the most profoundly dangerous things about donald trump's first year has been his interactions with federal law enforcement across the board, from the interactions with jim comey that led up to jim's firing to the attacks on the -- public attacks on the attorney general and the deputy attorney general and the special counsel. and to the almost unbelievable naming of individual fbi officials for attacks in individual tweets, andy mccabe, the deputy director, jim baker,

and a line agent, peter strzok. this is unheard of presidential behavi behavior, and the fact that so many people in congress seem to not nearly not take it as a grave, grave problem, but to be jumping on the bandwagon is -- i think it's a profoundly dangerous thing that we just have to keep talking about and keep reminding people that this is not the way the president is supposed to be interacting with a very powerful entity of federal power which is the law enforcement apparatus of the united states. >> brian, another part of the very important part of our government that provides critical checks and balances that you don't see in countries where autocrats rule has to do with the judiciary.

you look at what the president of the united states has said in the past about republican appointees who were federal judges that ruled against him on the district court level, he's questioned authority to do that. he's sent people out on sunday morning shows saying the president's authority is not to be questioned. then i mentioned, of course, the things i mentioned today, i could do a list of ten things he's done just this week that fits right into your book, right into your thesis about donald trump and other autocrats. you still have republicans apologizing for donald trump, and even this week, some suggesting perhaps they're being a bit too hard on him and they should strike a sort of detente pose. >> that's why i'm more pessimistic about the state of the democracy. there used to be a pact that you didn't cater to the authoritarian voters. they existed. they didn't care about

procedure, the constitution, checks and balances, what have you. now trump has broken that pact. the problem is, even if he's contained in certain areas of the institutional checks that exist on him, the fact that he is activating these voters among the public, they expect and cheer this authoritarian behavior. >> brian, let me stop you really quick. i want you to explain this to viewers who may not have heard this before. i certainly didn't hear this before. you talk about authoritarian voters, voters who actually want the strong man or the strong woman, who don't give a damn about the constitution. you say they have been with us long before trump. >> exactly. think about something like absolute disregard for truth. in 2008 when john mccain was at a rally and somebody said barack obama was not born in the united states, he shut that person down. he said no, that's not true. when there were chants of lock her up, he bathed in the glory

of it. it's a violation of democratic norms. when trump leaves office, 60 or 70 million people are going to expect republicans or their favored candidate to behave in ways that trump has behaved, where he doesn't compromise, doesn't respect democratic norms, but does what he wants to to get it done and to try to sort of enjoy the show in the mean sometime. they're okay with the strong man rule. i think this is something where you don't just open -- you don't violate this pact and all of a sudden everything goes back to normal in 2020 or in 2024. it's not going to. that's why even though you can say, okay, there are some institutional checks on this person, the way he's transforming our political culture is not going to end when he leaves office. that's where i think the possibility of a trump 2.0 who is even more effective at doing the same type of authoritarian tactics is very scary for our democracy. at the end of the day, we had tens of millions of people that like this. that's the harsh reality of it.

>> evelyn, i want to ask you a question about this. a lot of things going on yesterday. one of the things was donald trump doing this interview with "wall street journal" where he claimed he had a good relationship with kim jong un. i want to get your general reaction to him saying that and more specifically, i think answering a question that i lie a lot of normal people would want to know, is there some back channel maybe with the north koreans. is it possible that trump actually has spoken to kim jong un through private communications? what do we make of that, not just the assessment that they have a good relationship because trump says he has a good relationship with everybody. what does that say relative to defusing a volatile situation? >> i think the president throws up all this chap all the time. i think he thinks he's confusing the north koreans, but confu he confusing us at the same time. it's not good when we talk about the dynamic between us and north korea. i'm guessing he has no relationship with kim jong un. they probably haven't talked on

the phone because he did say when the conditions are right, and the conditions are not right right now. the conditions are right for state department officials to be talking to north koreans, and i do know they have been doing that based on my conversations with them and also, of course, the reporting that we've seen. there are back channel discussions going on, but real discussions that would involve our president, the time is not right for that yet. >> you get to the moment where you realize donald trump is basically saying, steve bannon, hardly know the guy, but kim jong un, he and i are really tight. >> this latest call of treason, trump seemingly conflating loyalty to country with loyalty to him. can you tack about what historical precedent there is in our system for this, if there is one? >> there is none. the oath of office that people take is not to the president of the united states. it's to preserve and protect the constitution of the united

states. i think the demands for personal loyalty from the president are extremely disturbing, and i -- it was the story that trump had demanded a sort of oath of loyalty from jim comey that caused -- reading that story caused me a number of months ago to come forward with the information that i had. i don't think the president understands what the word treason means. certainly not going to apologize for what peter strzok did which actually does seem inappropriate. whatever it was, it was certainly nothing of the sort that would be described as treason. for the president to be saying that, i agree with you, does suggest that what he expects of

fbi agents is, you know, some theelity to himself. i agree with you that's a very disturbing expectation on his part. >> evelyn, i want to go back to brian's point where he's painting a picture that, no, this is not a blip and trump will move on and we'll go back to norms. he has unearthed this potential dystopian future, there are tens of millions of people who buy into this authoritative thing and it's teeing it up for that. i challenge that a little bit and say there are those people there, but we are going to flip back to a norm. curious where you come out on that. >> i think i believe it's possible if we all stay strong and defend our institution. at the end of the day, when you talk to people in other countries -- we've had a couple of venezuelans where they detail how to fight against a totalitarian leader or someone .

we need congress to be strong, the judiciary to be strong. there's a danger because obviously we see the white house trying to co-opt both institutions and to co-op the media which is the third pillar that can fight back against executive overreach. the other thing, if i could add to what we were talking about -- i don't want to say the bad word, the blank hole. >> s-hole. >> it's troubling domestically. we talked about that already. also on the international front. the united states, yes, we have raw power, the biggest military, biggest economy, we can get a lot of things done. we can cause trouble and make things happen. it's the influence that makes people go along and pro vieds the exponential umph for us to make a difference in the would and get our way, frankly speaking. that's what trump is eroding, the influence we need to make our power matter. >> so brian, what we need to do, i think the whole country to be

constructive, people who are concerned about the things that those of us around the table are concerned with, what's next? what are the safeguards we put in place post trump to make sure we aren't quite as vulnerable as we discovered ourselves. i thought all along that trump might be a problem, but our institutions would maintain, that they would be strong. they have held strong. for instance, for me, one thing i thought about, and maybe this is a back idea, do we really want an attorney general that the president of the united states can hire and fire at a whim, or do we want an attorney general that requires a two-thirds vote of both chambers of congress snt that's just something i've thought about. i know you've thought about this much more. what are some things we can do post trump to protect ourselves from the next person with tyrannical or autocratic impulses that gets to the white house? >> there's two responses to have. one is political and one is legal. the political one needs to be

that there's a clear message that voters send this is a losing strategy. if voters turn out in droves in november and rebuke trump, it will say if you go down this path, you will lose. that's the most important thing for people to do right now. the legal aspect of this, we need to codify democratic norms into law. it shouldn't be optional to release your tax returns. if you attack the press, we should have protections that are really, really strong about saying that the press is an important part of our democracy and congress needs to stand up for them. i think there's a variety of legal changes that congress can make to codify some of these democratic norms into law and actually say there are consequences to being somebody who has these authoritarian impulses. so political and legal. >> benjamin, in 60 seconds, same question to you. >> i have a really simple proposal along the lines that brian just advocated, which is that we should apply the freedom of information act to the white

house. currently under the freedom of information act, the white house and the executive office of the president is exempt. if you applied it, you would give the press a lot of leverag. for exactly the issues that you're talking about. and it would really give the president something to think about. >> all right. thank you so much. greatly appreciate it. benjamin, it's great to have you on board. brian, evelyn farkas, thank you as well. coming up next, plans to move a major plant from mexico to michigan and guess who's taking the credit. liberty did what? yeah, liberty mutual 24-hour roadside assistance helped him to fix his flat so he could get home safely. my dad says our insurance doesn't have that. don't worry - i know what a lug wrench is, dad. is this a lug wrench? maybe?

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so hours after announcing wage increases to its lowest earning employees, walmart abruptly shut down 63 sams club stores nationwide and they did it without warning to the over 3,000 employees who worked at those locations.

let's bring in right now cnbc's dominic chu for more on this. the good news was fleeting. and then suddenly, man, they just dropped the boom. what happened? >> it was a roller coaster ride for sure. we're talking about america's biggest private employer in walmart. the only person in the u.s. that employs more people is the u.s. government. like you said, the positive side of things they did say they're going to raise hourly wages on the low end of side of things to 11 bucks an hour. it's currently around 9 bucks. it's also going to hand out bonuses. the key here is up to $1,000. it depends on your ten chur. if you've been there for 25 years, then it could be different. it sounded like good news until we heard about the 63 closures. the company said they're going to try to streamline the operations and help the employees find job elsewhere but still there are going to be job losses. it's leading some to criticize walmart, saying they're trying to hide some of those job closures and job losses, using

some of the benefits of those wage gains. certainly something to be aware of. another company taking some of the hit here is what's happening with fiat chrysler. the automaker said it's giving out bonuses of $2,000 to eligible employees. it's also going to invest about $1 billion in one of its michigan plants. the company said it would create an additional 2,500 jobs. it will also relocate production back to the u.s. where it's currently being made in mexico. a couple big stories out there. we're not even talking about facebook and all things changing with their news feed. >> thanks, greatly appreciate it. we've got 15 seconds to wrap things up for each of our guests. let's start. donny deutsch, 15 seconds, what's the big idea today? >> very quickly, donald trump in 12 hours shows everything we need to know and do know about him, a, he's a racist and he's a liar coming out today saying he didn't say it so just another day. >> heidi, welcome to the family.

>> thank you. >> what are your final thoughts? >> we've been talking in really sweeping terms today about the long-term effects of the trump presidency but there's some real-world today tangible effects of these outbursts and that is that prior to yesterday, congressional negotiators thought they had a deal on daca. to provide some reprieve to million also of families who are worried about being torn apart. >> all right, john heilman, wrap it up for us. final thoughts. >> prior to yesterday, there was only one person in the world who could unite the labor party, the tori party and the royal family against him, that was donny deutsch. now the labor party, the tori party and the royal family have now rejected donald trump and he's not going to britain so there you go, that's incredible. >> donny is dead, long live donny. all right. thank you, guys, so much. it was great having you here. thank you for watching. stephanie ruhle's going to be picking up the coverage in two minutes. see you tomorrow or maybe monday.

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hi there, i'm stephanie ruhle with a lot to get to this morning. you may have guessed that. starting with the new low. very low. using vulgar terms, the president reportedly questioning why the united states needs immigrants from haiti and other african countries. and president trump now saying it wasn't that foul and derogatory word as lawmakers from both sides condemn the president's remarks. >> the most odious and insidious racism masquerading. >> they're extremely inappropriate. >> dreamers denied. president lashing out this morning against a bipartisan deal to protect young undocumented immigrants. will no deal lead to a government shutdown? plus, my exclusive sit-d